


akht

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: OTP: I am doing this for myself (Mehrunissa / Padmavati fics, Padmaavat) [4]
Category: Padmaavat (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Golden Girls AU, Oneshot, Pre-Relationship, Reunions, like they’re in a relationship but they don’t know it, oblivious lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 02:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20668007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Padmavati’s father is overjoyed to have her return, and to see she has gained two sisters.Set in Avani’s Golden Girls AU.Title means “sister” in Arabic.





	akht

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [bayet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20309428) by [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes). 

> This is a sequel to “bayet” but can be read independently.

Her father is overjoyed to see her again when she falls into his arms, erasing any worries she might have had about dishonor and scandal. His only daughter is in his arms after seven years away, four of which he spent convinced she was dead or worse, and nothing else matters. King Gandharvasen will not hear a word otherwise.

“We were shaken, of course, when we heard about the siege, but we were sure that King Ratansen would do everything to protect you. But then we heard that he had abducted the Empress, or he had been killed, or that Mewar had fallen and everyone, including its queens, had committed _jauhar_, and we didn’t know what to think –”

“I am alive, Father,” she reminds him. “I have been alive, and I have been safe.”

“Living like the poorest woman,” he snaps. “Abandoned by every king, with all their vaunted Rajput honor, including your husband—”

He cuts himself off, not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but Padmavati is strangely gratified to hear it.

“I was not alone, Father, I had Nagmati and Mehrunissa by my side every day.”

It had been awkward, to say the least, to show up on the shores of Singhal with another fugitive Rajput queen and a fugitive Muslim empress in tow, but when her father saw how highly she esteemed them, he had welcomed them into his home as warmly as he had once welcomed King Ratansen.

How much that visit had cost her husband in the end, and Mewar, and Chittor – Padmavati cuts that thought off there.

_This is different_. And she doesn’t just believe that: she _knows_.

Mehru and Nagmati feel out of place here, she can tell.

Mehru is so apologetic – always fearful of causing offense, she is – for showing up so unexpectedly and imposing on them, and Padmavati privately laments that Mehru will never feel unreservedly comfortable in any home again, not after losing two sanctuaries. Nagmati too, even if she limits herself to a curt, “I hope Padmavati was not wrong when she said we will be welcome here.”

“Nonsense,” her father proclaims when he hears them. “You have been by her side at every moment of her exile, kept her alive, and helped bring her back home. I always regretted that Padmavati had only brothers, and no female companions, but in the midst of this ordeal, I am glad to know that she has gained two sisters.”

_Sisters_, her father says, and Padmavati thinks, _sisters?_ She has never had a sister, has never known what it is to have someone to bully you and defend you in equal measure, to have that assurance. Nagmati, with her sharp tongue and irritatingly sensible advice and longing to be respected, could be the older sister she never had, and she finds the notion fitting.

But then Padmavati considers Mehrunissa. Mehru, who risked everything to help them, who Padmavati has come to rely on as she has never been able to anyone else, whose happiness brings Padmavati joy, who cares for Padmavati’s happiness above all else, who knows the cadences of Padmavati’s heart as no one else ever has, not even her father or her husband. _Sister_ seems entirely too inadequate a word, suddenly, to describe what Mehru is to her.

Padmavati has never had a sister, though, and who is she to question her father’s opinion? (_He thought to promise me to Ratansen,_ she thinks with vague bitterness, although she knows that is unfair.)

She has her father, she has her home, and she has two sisters of the heart.

_Sisters_, Padmavati thinks. _Yes, sisters._


End file.
